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So last Thursday the NFL draft commenced and over the next three days the 32 teams involved in the greatest sport since gladiator combat hedged their bets and made millionaires out of a select few 20-somethings to help them win a Super Bowl. To every football fan, the Draft is a like a seltzer water after being stranded in the desert. Not ideal compared to the real thing but you are so goddamn thirsty that you would drink camel piss so it doesn’t matter.

For Patriots fans this draft held one particular pick that has seemingly crawled into all of our imaginations and is promptly running them wild. With the 62nd pick in the draft the Pats select QB Jimmy Garoppolo (Jimmy G from now on) out of Eastern Illinois. With such a high pick no one could help but wonder, “Is this the guy? The heir to the throne upon which Brady has reigned for so long?”. Well, the point of this blog isn’t to speculate on that but on a tangent that thought process spawned. Am I going to cry why Tom Brady retires?

Now obviously I’m going to go with the assumption that the Patriots and Brady will not crush my fantasy of him only playing for and retiring as a Patriot (please make it so, by the Old Gods and the New) because just the thought of Brady in another jersey makes me want to punt babies and lightly slap kittens. So, assuming that, the question then becomes at that press conference does it get unbearably dusty?

Well, to accurately answer that question I think we need to establish what kind of crier I am. I’d like to say I’m a manly crier. No sobs, or wailing, just the quivering lip and those big, silent tears making tracks down my cheeks. Basically, the exact opposite of these two guys:

When I was watching ‘Click’ did I take some shuddering breaths? Sure*. Did my nose get a little runny at the opening of ‘Up’? I’m man enough to admit that it did. Did some water of weakness drip from sight-holes when Old Yeller goes behind the woodshed never to return? Well, not really because I think I saw that movie on Disney at like 6 AM when I was 5 and had no idea what was going on but had I it would have, I’m sure. But it never deteriorated to uncontrollable sobbing. That streak may come to an end when TFB hangs up #12.

I mean I love football, I love the Patriots and Brady is, unquestionably the greatest QB in franchise history. He’s easily a Top 5 QB in NFL history. It just doesn’t happen that often you get a guy that awesome in the hardest and most important position in sports. Even crazier is when you get a great QB that doesn’t even guarantee a championship (sorry Marino, Fouts, Akili Smith) and Brady has gotten 3 and is a few plays away from having 5 (goddamn you Eli Manning!). Once you put it all into perspective LAB (Life After Brady) seems absolutely terrifying and tear inducing.

I hope this advent of face precipitation is still a few years off, like my first prostate exam which will also probably cause not-so-manly tears, but I still don’t like thinking about it. Make no mistake, I don’t dislike the pick. In fact, I’d rather the Patriots have Jimmy G for a year to learn from one of the all-time greats with a Mallet shield in front of him in case something disastrous happens. I’d rather the Patriots have a viable option as a back up in the years ahead, as Brady ages, instead of a Rohan Davey where, if Brady goes down, we just light the schedule on fire and perform seances for the next Andrew Luck to show up in the draft.

What I don’t like about the pick is that its making me think about the end of the Brady era.

*’Click’ has probably one of the saddest scenes in movie history. If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about. A man dying in the street chasing his children to apologize for a wasted life is NOT what an Adam Sandler movie usually entails. Part of me thinks that is what makes it so brutal, you just aren’t expecting it. You are expecting fart jokes and simple guitar chords with a bunch of made up words like “Slamahamaheezy” and suddenly BAM, right in the heartstrings. Dastardly.